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  1. Member
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    I have 2 drives on my 2 year old i7 PC, one specifically for Blue Ray and one normal.
    I use headphones all the time.
    The sound when I am car racing or flight sim or communicating via Skype is fine.
    When I put a DVD of a film in either drive the sound is feeble and unless I can get subtitles it is reduced to 15 percent. Even though the sound is supposed to be 100 percent it is not.
    No tinkering with the icon boxes with the various programs, Window Media Player, Cyberlink PowerDVD 8 make any difference.
    Does anyone know the secret to getting adequate sound on DVDs played on a computer??
    Many thanks.
    peterjh
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  2. Member DB83's Avatar
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    The drives do not control the sound. That is the work of your soundcard. What make/model is it ? A lot of PCs will have an inbuilt Realtek HD audio but yours could be something else. There will be a mixing panel for various settings.

    Are the headphones wired or wirelsss ? Wireless will also use their own drivers.

    PowerDVd will also have audio settings that you should also check.

    Finally, dolby audio is 'quiet'. If the dvd has LPCM audio then try that instead.
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    Hi DB83 - thanks for your quick reply.By reference to dxdiag my sound card is down as Realtek Digital Output
    I have never known how to find the mixing panel you mention.
    The meaning of LPCM is also unknown.
    surely the settings of the sound card, poor with DVDs, should also be poor with other programs. I have never tampered with them for flight sim or car racing and skype and they work fine.
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  4. Member DB83's Avatar
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    Look in your control panel and there should be a large reddish speaker icon. That may also be in your system tray.

    LPCM = Linear PCM. That is uncompreesed audio > CD quality.

    Games do not AFAIK (but I am not a gamer) use dolby ac3 audio. It can be quite quiet to the ear without processing to 5.1 speakers and an amplifier.

    But most dvds should offer different audio tracks
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    Hi again DB83
    In the system tray I found the "reddish" speaker icon.
    There I found Realtek HD Audio Manager
    There were sections labeled Sound Manager - Audio Devices - System Sound Events - Windows Player - Volume Control

    No mention of LPCM
    No mention of AFAIK
    No mention of Dolby AC3 audio
    Are you saying that there is a different combinations for each different DVD I choose to play? That there is no master volume which will boost all my videos with just one set-up?
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  6. Member DB83's Avatar
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    No.

    In the mixer you see a volume wheel and a wave slider - make sure the wheel is furthest to the right and the slider to the top to give 100% volume.

    In the Audio I/O setting you an set the output depending on your setup - again you are probably set at headphones but try 2 Speaker or vice-versa.

    Of course, your Realtek could be different to mine.

    When you play a dvd there is usually a sound menu where you can selct the audio to play. You often see a Doly surround mix and LPCM or PCM or just Stereo (which should be PCM)

    In PowerDvd there is also a audio selection from the configuration. There you can set the Speaker envoirment - you should select headphones but 2 speaker can work - and the output mode (experimement between 'Stereo' and Dolby Down-Mix)
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  7. DVDs often use AC3 audio which includes dialog normalisation. It's supposed to ensure the the dialogue level between different DVDs remains constant. As a result the player often lowers the volume of AC3 audio and it can sound too quiet. Whether the players you're using obey the dialogue normalisation, I'm not sure, but try MPC-HC. I'm pretty sure it doesn't.

    Alternatively, ffdshow has a volume filter which lets you boost the volume by 30db. It can also use two codecs for decoding AC3. Last time I checked, one obeys the dialogue normalisation while the other doesn't. You can tell MPC-HC to use ffdshow for audio decoding and use it to boost the volume (if you need instructions for setting up MPC-HC/ffdshow, post back). Or try a player which lets you increase the audio volume beyond 100% on it's own. I'm pretty sure both VLC and Potplayer will, but you might have to go into their options and set the maximum volume level first. I can't remember..... I don't use either much.

    Most media players also have an option to normalize the volume "on the fly". MPC-HC can boost the vcolume by 10db that way. Ffdshow, VLC and Potplayer all have a volume normalising function. I'm not sure about the players you've tried.
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    Hi hello-hello
    Thank you for coming back with rgard to this issue.
    I have no knowledge whatsoever about MPC-HC or FFDSHow or VLC 0r even PotPlayer.
    I just want to find the master volume which can make simple DVDs to be heard on headphones on my i7 pc.
    Various other applications work quite happily - car racing, flight sim, skype. I can play music discs/tracks also at an acceptable level.
    My volume shows 100 percent
    The other gauges up to maximum but the working volume, particularly via Blue Ray DVDs remains at a sluggardly 10 percent.
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  9. Member DB83's Avatar
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    You appear to know little about your PC (in two years having never found the audio mixer)

    But you make the comment that blu-ray/dvd sounds at 10/15%. How to you determine this ratio?

    But IMO you have been given the explanation - simple from me, more technical from hello_hello. If you have no knowledge of other programs you should really try to obtain the knowledge. There is often no magical cure.

    And as for the 'Master' Volume control that is on the mixer.

    One final thing since you mention Skype. Go to Tools/Options/Audio Settings. Ensure that the box 'Let Skype adjust my audio settings' is not ticked. I do recall having some issues with that many moons ago.
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  10. Originally Posted by peterjh View Post
    Hi hello-hello
    Thank you for coming back with rgard to this issue.
    I have no knowledge whatsoever about MPC-HC or FFDSHow or VLC 0r even PotPlayer.
    If you clicked on the links in my last post it'd be pretty obvious what they are. FFDshow is a bunch of codecs used for decoding, and using ffdshow is optional. The rest are all standalone media players. As far as I'm aware they all ignore AC3 dialogue normalisation, so if that's the problem, it's easy to check. MPC-HC definitely does, so if you download and install it and open a DVD and the volume's louder, the dialogue normalisation is probably the reason.
    MPC-HC won't let you increase the volume beyond 100%. I'm fairly sure both VLC and PotPlayer do. At least 200%, maybe more. You mentioned subtitles in relation to the volume in your original post, but I don't see how subtitles could effect the output volume. Are you saying if you load the subtitles it gets louder?
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